electricity.
At the end of a walkway so blackened by fire I kept imagining it was turned to ash and would drop us, screaming, into the yawning drop underneath, stood another group. Upsiders this time, yet with the same look of hate, the same charge of it in the air around them.
We were dead, I was sure of it, due to be stomped flat between two snorting, charging opponents. I was already curling my hand with a groan, and trying to pretend I didn’t hear the voice, didn’t want what it offered, when the priest appeared.
Guinto simply stepped forward from out of a darkened, smouldering doorway, for all the world as though he was taking a stroll. His gentle smile seemed to radiate goodwill, to reach inside and make you want to be good to your fellow man. I resisted the urge—I’ve been a cynic too long to suddenly start thinking everyone is nice and the world is a fluffy, lovely place when patently this part at least is a shithole. Cynicism is harder to give up than drugs and women put together. Instead I wondered how in hell he was doing it and realised it didn’t matter, because he was and I might live to the end of the day, which is always a bonus.
The effect on the mobs was dramatic—they lowered torches and clubs and a few even shuffled their feet like naughty schoolchildren.
Jake hesitated and I could see it play out across her face, in the clench of her jaw and the way her eyes held Guinto’s. Anger fighting with piety, with wanting the Goddess to look on her kindly, to love her as the mages had always told her the Goddess wouldn’t because of what she was. To lay about with her swords at every injustice aimed at Downsiders, or to take what Guinto was offering? Piety, a need for the Goddess’s acceptance, won, but only just and her swords were still ready because the Downside Goddess was all about fighting.
Jake was the first to go forward and ask for Guinto’s blessing, and then the mobs became not mobs, but people again. Clubs were surreptitiously dropped, and the torches lost their menace.
“That’s one hell of a trick,” I said and Pasha shot me a vicious look.
“No trick. It’s just that we believe something you can’t see, won’t see.”
’Pity rolled off him in waves and made me want to smack him a good one round the chops. ’Pity from Pasha, some screwed-up Downsider who had everything I wanted, and who I liked anyway, despite myself. Hating him would be like kicking a puppy. So instead I snapped out, “We don’t have time to play with imaginary friends. Lise doesn’t have time.”
He looked like he was about to snap something back, but he bit down on it and glanced at Jake. The Downsiders were following her lead, following something real and substantial from their old lives. The ’Pit had been full of misery and pain, but at least that was what they knew and they found comfort in the familiar. Guinto leant over and whispered in her ear and she nodded before she began talking quietly to the Downsiders. She flicked a meaningful glance at Pasha.
My feet were getting jittery and I kept seeing flashes of Lise, bloodied and barely breathing. All we had left, all Mahala had left. Pretty much all I had, too. “Pasha—”
He held up a hand, as though he was trying to hear something, then nodded. When he spoke, I realised what Jake had done, what she’d shoved down her constant anger for. “I’m going. I’ll be quick, I promise. Guinto’s told her we can take Lise to his temple—he’s got rooms there, and a couple of his parishioners are nurses. You stay and look after Jake.”
Look after Jake? It almost made me laugh; she could kill me as soon as blink. Yet the look on Pasha’s face was serious, and I knew that wasn’t what he’d meant. “But Lise—”
“I’ve already spoken to Dendal. She’s pale, but breathing steadily. He’s got the bleeding stopped. We’ll get her to the temple, it’s not far from the lab. I’ve sent Dog to check on Erlat, but I don’t think the
At the end of a walkway so blackened by fire I kept imagining it was turned to ash and would drop us, screaming, into the yawning drop underneath, stood another group. Upsiders this time, yet with the same look of hate, the same charge of it in the air around them.
We were dead, I was sure of it, due to be stomped flat between two snorting, charging opponents. I was already curling my hand with a groan, and trying to pretend I didn’t hear the voice, didn’t want what it offered, when the priest appeared.
Guinto simply stepped forward from out of a darkened, smouldering doorway, for all the world as though he was taking a stroll. His gentle smile seemed to radiate goodwill, to reach inside and make you want to be good to your fellow man. I resisted the urge—I’ve been a cynic too long to suddenly start thinking everyone is nice and the world is a fluffy, lovely place when patently this part at least is a shithole. Cynicism is harder to give up than drugs and women put together. Instead I wondered how in hell he was doing it and realised it didn’t matter, because he was and I might live to the end of the day, which is always a bonus.
The effect on the mobs was dramatic—they lowered torches and clubs and a few even shuffled their feet like naughty schoolchildren.
Jake hesitated and I could see it play out across her face, in the clench of her jaw and the way her eyes held Guinto’s. Anger fighting with piety, with wanting the Goddess to look on her kindly, to love her as the mages had always told her the Goddess wouldn’t because of what she was. To lay about with her swords at every injustice aimed at Downsiders, or to take what Guinto was offering? Piety, a need for the Goddess’s acceptance, won, but only just and her swords were still ready because the Downside Goddess was all about fighting.
Jake was the first to go forward and ask for Guinto’s blessing, and then the mobs became not mobs, but people again. Clubs were surreptitiously dropped, and the torches lost their menace.
“That’s one hell of a trick,” I said and Pasha shot me a vicious look.
“No trick. It’s just that we believe something you can’t see, won’t see.”
’Pity rolled off him in waves and made me want to smack him a good one round the chops. ’Pity from Pasha, some screwed-up Downsider who had everything I wanted, and who I liked anyway, despite myself. Hating him would be like kicking a puppy. So instead I snapped out, “We don’t have time to play with imaginary friends. Lise doesn’t have time.”
He looked like he was about to snap something back, but he bit down on it and glanced at Jake. The Downsiders were following her lead, following something real and substantial from their old lives. The ’Pit had been full of misery and pain, but at least that was what they knew and they found comfort in the familiar. Guinto leant over and whispered in her ear and she nodded before she began talking quietly to the Downsiders. She flicked a meaningful glance at Pasha.
My feet were getting jittery and I kept seeing flashes of Lise, bloodied and barely breathing. All we had left, all Mahala had left. Pretty much all I had, too. “Pasha—”
He held up a hand, as though he was trying to hear something, then nodded. When he spoke, I realised what Jake had done, what she’d shoved down her constant anger for. “I’m going. I’ll be quick, I promise. Guinto’s told her we can take Lise to his temple—he’s got rooms there, and a couple of his parishioners are nurses. You stay and look after Jake.”
Look after Jake? It almost made me laugh; she could kill me as soon as blink. Yet the look on Pasha’s face was serious, and I knew that wasn’t what he’d meant. “But Lise—”
“I’ve already spoken to Dendal. She’s pale, but breathing steadily. He’s got the bleeding stopped. We’ll get her to the temple, it’s not far from the lab. I’ve sent Dog to check on Erlat, but I don’t think the
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